A blog devoted to the discussion of the greatest movies ever made, or The Essential Films. From the beginning of cinema history to present day, these films are crucial to the education of anyone who loves the art of film making.

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Friday, October 24, 2014

100 Greatest Movie Monsters

Happy Halloween! Instead of our usual countdown of the 100 Essential Horror Movies, this year we present you with the greatest movie monsters of all time! Criteria is pretty loose, the "monster" in question can be mythical or supernatural, a real animal or an imaginary beast, out of fantasy, horror or science fiction. The only thing we discount are humans. So, scary though they might be, no Hannibal Lecter, no Joker, no Norman Bates. The monsters can LOOK human (vampires, zombies, etc) but can't actually be human, unless they've been altered in some way. With that out of the way, here's the countdown!

100 - The DwellersTHE DESCENT2006Hey, there's something down here...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------99 - The Lord of DarknessLEGEND1985 Performed by Tim Curry

You think you have won! What is light without dark? What are you without me? I am a part of you all. You can never defeat me. We are brothers eternal!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

98 - The BlobTHE BLOB1958Don't go in, Jim! This won't do any good! It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen in my life. Come on, we've got to clear this area!

Six years ago... NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A space probe was launched to collect samples but broke up during re-entry over Mexico. Soon after new life forms began to appear and half of the was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today... The Mexican & US military still struggle to contain 'the creatures'...

The time is 5.26 a.m. This is Gerald Keys with the Media Sculp sunrise news bulletin. There is still no confirmation by Montreal city police concerning alleged reports of a city wide plague of violent sexual assaults. The assaults, believed to have originated in the vicinity of Starliner Island, began late last night, and have spread with increasing frequency this morning. Reports of the attacks have been termed irresponsible and hysterical, by a Montreal city police spokesman. Stay tuned on further details, on Media Sculp news at 6.00.

They have taken the bridge and the second hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes, drums... drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A shadow lurks in the dark. We can not get out... they are coming.

Samhain, also known as All Hallows' Eve, also known as Halloween. Pre-dating Christianity, the Celtic holiday was celebrated on the one night between autumn and winter when the barrier between the living and the dead was thinnest, and often involved rituals that included human sacrifice.

There was a mountain troll territory up in Strynefjell. Back in the 70's they decided to build tunnels through that troll-rich area. Both the TSS and I tried to object, but to no avail. I was given the task of going in and exterminating all the trolls. Every last one. Pregnant females. Kids. Newborns that hadn't even learned to walk... It was a massacre.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Max Schreck, who will be portraying our vampire, Count Orlock. As you no doubt have heard, Max's methods are somewhat... unconventional, but... I am sure you will come to respect his artistry in this matter.

Oh, I know this creature of yours... Vermithrax Pejorative. Look at these scales, these ridges. When a dragon gets this old, it knows nothing but pain, constant pain. It grows decrepit... crippled... pitiful. Spiteful!

New York is like a city besieged. A state of emergency has been declared... and the entire police force put on 24-hour duty. Civilian defense is fully mobilized... and shelters have been opened in an effort to stop the mounting hysteria. All traffic has been halted. And Times Square, the heart of New York, has stopped beating. The National Guard has been called out, fully armed. to repel the invader. This is full-scale war against a terrible enemy... such as modern man has never before faced. Ordinary bullets have no effect... and a method of destroying the awesome creature... has not yet been formulated. But the battle field has been cleared. Herald Square. 34th Street. Broadway. Every section of the city is guarded. No one knows where the monster will strike next. It was last seen on Wall Street, close to where it came ashore. But lower Manhattan has become no man's land... where the beast, at present, lies hidden. The National Guard is barricading the entire area... in an effort to confine the death and destruction... of what is already the worst disaster in New York's history.

Ah. Well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT... NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY... NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?

Here on the ocean floor is the only independence. Here I am free! Imagine what would happen if they controlled machines such as this submarine boat. Far better that they think there's a monster and hunt me with harpoons.

Yeah, we all heard stuff! Like uh, how they... they thought that there were other dimensions. You know, other... other worlds all around us, and how they wanted to try to make a window, you know, so they can look through and see what's on the other side.

Well, that's the story. So if your air conditioner goes on the fritz or your washing machine blows up or your video recorder conks out; before you call the repairman turn on all the lights, check all the closets and cupboards, look under all the beds, 'cause you never can tell there just might be a gremlin in your house.

Ain't logical. Cuttin' on his own face, rapin' and murdering - Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid. But these Reavers... last ten years they show up like the bogeyman from stories. Eating people alive? Where's that get fun?

Hello, Edward. You don't have to be afraid of me. I know what it's like being different. Only they won't pick on you anymore... or beat you up. I'll see to that. All you have to do is take my hand.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

62 - The StrangersDARK CITY1998First there was darkness. Then came the strangers. They were a race as old as time itself. They had mastered the ultimate technology. The ability to alter physical reality by will alone. They called this ability "Tuning". But they were dying. Their civilization was in decline, and so they abandoned their world seeking a cure for their own mortality. Their endless journey brought them to a small, blue world in the farthest corner of the galaxy. Our world. Here they thought they had finally found what they had been searching for. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

61 - The Skeleton ArmyJASON AND THE ARGONAUTS1963 Created by Ray Harryhausen

Since the 1960s, Ed and Lorraine Warren have been known as the world's most renowned paranormal investigators. Lorraine is a gifted clairvoyant, while Ed is the only non-ordained Demonologist recognized by the Catholic church. Out of the thousands of cases throughout their controversial careers, there is one case so malevolent, they've kept it locked away until now.

It started as rioting. But right from the beginning you knew this was different. Because it was happening in small villages, market towns. And then it wasn't on the TV any more. It was in the street outside. It was coming in through your windows. It was a virus. An infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. It was something in the blood. By the time they tried to evacuate the cities it was already too late. Army blockades were overrun. And that's when the exodus started. Before the TV and radio stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in Paris and New York. We didn't hear anything more after that.

No one would have believed in the middle of the 20th Century that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than Man's. Yet, across the gulf of space on the planet Mars, intellects vast and cool and unsypathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely joined their plans against us. Mars is more than 140 million miles from the sun, and for centuries has been in the last status of exhaustion. At night, temperatures drop far below zero even at its equator. Inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences that which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate.

50 - VelociraptorsJURASSIC PARK1993OK, try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous Period. You get your first look at this "six foot turkey" as you enter a clearing. He moves like a bird, lightly, bobbing his head. And you keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like T-Rex - he'll lose you if you don't move. But no, not Velociraptor. You stare at him, and he just stares right back. And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side, from the other two raptors you didn't even know were there. Because Velociraptor's a pack hunter, you see, he uses coordinated attack patterns and he is out in force today. And he slashes at you with this... A six-inch retractable claw, like a razor, on the the middle toe. He doesn't bother to bite your jugular like a lion, say... no no. He slashes at you here, or here... Or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines. The point is, you are alive when they start to eat you. So you know, try to show a little respect.

48 - The Cloverfield MonsterCLOVERFIELD2008Shut up! All right, we don't know what we saw. The point is it's still here, all right? So we need to get the hell out of Manhattan! Now!
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47 - The Infected

[REC]

2007

It's nearly 2 A.M. and we're still sealed in this building that we came to with the firemen earlier this evening, to assist an elderly woman who later attacked a policeman and a fireman. They're both in critical condition. The police won't let us leave and are giving us no explanations.

They're all trying to get inside his physical body simply because they... they crave life; the chance to live again. But there are other entities who are malevolent and have a more insidious agenda. And then there's this... A demon who seeks Dalton's body for one reason - to cause pain to others.

Now according to legend, Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in this castle, known as the Chamber of Secrets. Though shortly before departing, he sealed it until that time when his own true heir returned to the school. The heir alone would be able to open the chamber and unleash the horror within, and by so doing, purge the school of all those who, in Slytherin's view, were unworthy to study magic.

This is all most unpleasant. I know you can hear me. I hope you'll listen. You won't get out of this complex alive. What I want you to try to understand is that you mustn't. Your deaths will avert countless others. You've seen horrible things: an army of nightmare creatures. And they are real. But they are nothing compared to what lies beneath us. There is a greater good, and for that you must be sacrificed. Forgive us... and let us end it quickly.

Monsters from the subconscious. Of course. That's what Doc meant. Morbius. The big machine, 8,000 miles of klystron relays, enough power for a whole population of creative geniuses, operated by remote control. Morbius, operated by the electromagnetic impulses of individual Krell brains.

Then the third one hit Cabo. And then the fourth. And then we learned this was not gonna stop. This was just the beginning. We needed a new weapon. The world came together, pooling it's resources and throwing aside old rivalries for the sake of the greater good. To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own. The Jaeger program was born.

A word of caution: dementors are vicious creatures. They will not distinguish between the one they hunt and the one who gets in their way. Therefore I must warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. It's not in the nature of a dementor to be forgiving. But you know happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.

The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

I can't believe that Godzilla was the only surviving member of its species... But if we continue conducting nuclear tests... it's possible that another Godzilla might appear somewhere in the world again.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more, I'm going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization merely a captive - a show to gratify your curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World.